Haunt
by a subtle shade of iridescence
Summary: "My heart beats on and curses me. I am Ghost-Girl." After the Battle of New York, Loki returns to Asgard to face punishment and people begin to clear the rubble left behind. Yet, one girl cannot seem to let go. Told mainly from the POV of a brain dead girl who haunts the cause of her pain. In which people learn to either forget or forgive. Set mainly during Thor TDW.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Greetings! This is a fic derived from my frustrations of Loki not being held accountable for many of his crimes in various forms of fanfics. I love Loki to death and I think he's a great and amazing character to build on BUT because of all he encompasses- the possibility of redemption. And the only way that is possible is to see how much harm and pain he has caused his victims that are (ahem) sometimes glossed over. So _that_ coupled with extreme procrastination and me literally having no life made... this thing. Hopefully you enjoy!

* * *

_"What will survive of us is love."_

-Phillip Larkin

* * *

I wander. That is all I really can do.

Here in the blank walls there is stillness. But not peace. Everything inside of me rages and storms. A fury I cannot contain.

I wander the bleached-out halls of the hospital. Everywhere the nurses titter and doctors rush quickly from room to room, all in a display of organized chaos. In a place full of the reek of death, the nurses and doctors add a sense of comprehension to it all with their tittering chatter, clipboards, and smelly disenfectant.

I wander to room 101 where my mother kneels at my bed, clutching the sheets where my body lies.

The steady beeping is the only sound in the room. Even my mother's sobs are silent. She never made any noise when she cried. Or laughed, for that matter.

The question of what could have been confounds me. If I had just opened that door one second later, imagine the possibilites. I could have made it, I could have ran like everyone else did around me as I fell to the concrete ground.

(And I would not be here now, to haunt you.)

I walk out of the hospital. Away of my catatonic, brain dead body and grieving mother. I cannot stay here I cannot can't can't can't.

I want to Float Up Into The Stars and disappear into them and stay warm forever.

But the clunky, noisy machine beats my heart for me and breathes for me and chains me here.

Exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale. My heart beats on and curses me. I am Ghost-Girl.

* * *

I return to where he is. I close my eyes and when I open them I am in a different world I did not know existed when I lived. Just like that. As easy as not breathing.

I did not know there where other worlds until I died. But I am a walking contraindication for What Can Be Possible and What Cannot Be Possible. Ghosts and aliens do not exist right? And yet here I am, and there he is.

He sits there reading a book.

Inside his prison cell my rage fills up to the very ceiling it surprises me he does not burst into flames.

(I curse you a million times. It is because of you my mother cries because of you I stand here invisible and you sit there and turn a page without a care in the universe-)

I hate him.

* * *

I was in New York a year ago during the alien invasion. I was walking out of the library when suddenly I saw a flash of light shooting from a metallic monster in front of me and that was it. All over, stupidly quick.

* * *

Here, the flourescent lights shine and light up the cell the entire time. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No sense of time of day or passage of time except the changing shifts of the guards stationed around the door. It makes my skin itch. It makes him pace.

I sit here watching him more than I sit watching my mother.

He paces around the length of the cell. After what seems like hours, he slams his back against the wall and slides down to sit. His long legs stretch out in front of him and his back leans against the wall. And his face- hollow eyes. He stares catatonic at the wall and I think I spy myself in his reflection.

(I do haunt you, even if you do not know it.)

He is painful to look at, and despite what I thought I would feel, it is not joy.

I want him to see me. I want him to feel the scorch of my stare and then, maybe I will finally be at peace.

(You ruined everything of me and you do not even know my name. You do not even know my face.)

I stand in front of him, wave my arms and jump. I try to slap that hollow stare out of his face and shock him into _finally _looking at me but my hand goes right through his sunken face.

I stand and holler hateful words but he does not react.

"Your father hates you." Nothing. "You are disgusting, _reviled_ everywhere, especially by me." Nothing.

I mimic what I've heard before.

"Your birthright was to die." Nothing. "Everywhere you go,there is war, ruin, and death." Nothing. "You were cast out unto a frozen rock." Nothing.

"Nobody wants you." A twitch of the eyebrow.

I think he hears me sometimes. His face hurts something deep inside my chest, heart pounding against all of the pain and rage I was not born to feel.

When I get tired of hollering obscenities, I collapse on the floor, and _god_, I'm exhausted. _I want to go home_, I sob, over and over and over and over...

_I miss you Mommy. _

I hug myself on the ground in front of him and cry until my seams come apart and the room fills up with salty water. We're floating in the middle of a stormy ocean and he doesn't even realize.

These waves of grief are crashing over the both of us and I dimly see a single tear spill down his dead, hollow face.

I think I imagine it.

His eyes look up right into mine and for a heart wrenching, painful moment, I think he sees me. But I know he doesn't because I move to the side and his eyes don't follow me. I'm still weeping out this storm that engulfs both of us and I float suspended in front of him.

_Your eyes look into mine but do not see. _

His tear enrages me. Monsters are not allowed to cry. Sacred acts like weeping are reserved for lost girls and grieving mothers. Dead children and murdered fathers.

(Not for you.)

* * *

I found out his name when I found out the chances of me waking up from my coma was seven percent out of a hundred.

I left behind the hospital and the sullen doctor and my sobbing mother and ran out unto the streets of New York. I ran through people working on clearing out the rubble. I ran through fallen buildings and I avoided the library where my blood still marred the cobblestones. I ran and ran until I found it.

A wall. A wall of rubble. Millions of papers and pictures with names scribbled on them taped on the surface. The wall extended down the length of the street, the crumbling stone surprisingly staying upright, fulfilling the heavy obligation of holding the faces of ones most likely buried underneath the rubble. I could feel the words on the pictures and papers shrieking the same indecipherable song.

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

So many people, so many lives. But one paper caught my eye. A newspaper picture torn down the middle by the wind, almost lost in the clutter of photographs of people who were loved somewhere, who meant something to someone.

The picture contained a hazy photograph of Stark Tower, half destroyed. The edge of the clippings contained a greenish blur slightly recognizable as the Hulk. The one that caused quite a buzz in Harlem almost two years ago.

The other edge of the picture contained a tall figure. Dark hair and a pallor that bordered on unsettling. Crazed eyes. Arms raised in a position of defense. Angry. Psychotic. Terrifying.

Nearly unrecognizable with the calm, cool, and collected prisoner tucked away deep inside the cells of Asgard.

The headline read: ALIEN ATTACK ON NEW YORK: RUMORED "LOKI" RESPONSIBLE FOR DESTRUCTION-

The rest was cut off.

_Loki. _

A soft and almost musical surprise of a name. Not at all what I expected.

* * *

To be continued.

A/N: Let me know what you think! I am planning on making this a multiple layered fic with much more to come. Eh he he he he


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is the last chapter that will be told completely from OC's POV. For those of you wondering, yes, she remains unnamed for a reason that will later be clarified. For now, I have been referring to her as Ghost-Girl in my head. Enjoy!

**Chapter Two**

After my near-death, I wandered the empty shell of what remained of New York City. Underneath the dirt and rubble, I heard people cry. I saw the blood.

I stepped over the bodies and waved goodbye to the souls who could Float Away Up Into The Stars. I begged a Ghost-Child, a little girl with messy hair the color of a yellow highlighter, to take me with her. I reached out for her small hand so she could float me up away with her.

Since she was All The Way Dead, she seemed to understand already how this whole thing worked more than I do. She backed away from my hand and smiled sadly and danced away into the explosion in the sky that spilled out evil into the streets of New York, even though aliens didn't exist and good guys were supposed to slay the monsters.

(do you have any idea what you have done?)

* * *

I come here every night and sometimes I think he feels me. When he sleeps, he mutters words and asks "Why?" or says"I'm sorry."

Sometimes I hear him cry. It is not enough.

(I want you to burn in my mother's pain I want you to feel the desperation of being in between watching everything move on without you with you being stuck in the same place I want you to hurt hurt hurt)

(But sometimes, I think you already do.)

(And I hate that.)

When he sleeps, I feel the nightmares start. He begins to jerk and twitch in his sleep. And I feel them fly past me, sharp and jagged: the others who he has killed.

They enter his head and he whimpers and cries as he dreams.

(you don't see us but you feel us)

The people who are dead because of him. The difference is they are All The Way Dead and I am not. They can Float Up Into The Stars when he wakes but I can't do anything else except watch him.

It's almost painful the way he acts like it doesn't affect him. He wakes up crying and suddenly, he's not the monster anymore but the boy whose father didn't love him and the boy who stayed in his room to read books to cover up the fact that he had no friends to play with.

But then he stops and puts on his face, the one that was capable of setting New York ablaze. A deranged smirk. A bored lift of the eyebrow. A crossing of the legs to show everyone _exactly_ how much of a damn he doesn't give.

He kills everything he feels. I see him do it and I can almost pinpoint the exact moment every morning where he decides it's better to stop feeling than to face any of the ghosts lurking behind his eyes.

I don't know what to make of it.

* * *

Loki's mother, however, reminds me of mine.

He, I firmly believe, does not deserve such a mother.

_Frigga._

I say her name over and over. It's comforting to say somehow. It reminds me of when my mother would give me a glass of warm milk in the middle of the night when I could not fall asleep. I follow Frigga around whenever I can. I do not want to admit to myself the reason why.

(I miss my mother and you still have yours)

She has the most beautiful hair I have ever seen and eyes the color of warm honey. She spends most of her time reading in the ancient Asgard library, walking through her breathtaking gardens, or wandering the halls of the palace, no doubt worrying about him.

I follow her around, especially when she goes to the library. I sit and read with her. And sometimes, I just sit in a chair near the window and stare outside.

This place seems infinite, with all those stars and ocean opening this world like the inside of a seashell. There is also a bridge that looks as if a rainbow spilled its colors into carved glass marble. Every time I look at it, I feel a swooping feeling in my stomach as I see the dangerous height of it. What would stop someone from falling if they looked too close over the edge?

A strange twinge of fear twists my gut every time I see it. There's a darkness there I cannot exactly explain. I feel compelled to go there but something holds me back. The rushing of the water underneath is hypnotic in its beauty but I cannot figure out where it all goes. It's like the spilling of an ocean off the edge of the world. Like if the earth was flat the way the explorers back on Earth believed it was centuries ago. Will the ocean run dry eventually or will it fall into nothingness forever?

How can anything begin again when so much spills over to the point of no return?

I am afraid of it. There is nothing to keep you upright should you fall standing on it. I daydream of walking on it and looking at the magnificent sight of Asgard below me and seeing the array of everything ahead.

But then I feel the knowledge shake the foundation deep in my bones- I will be hypnotized by the never ending depths and lean over too far and fall. It's irrational to think but I cannot slow down my racing heart when I see it. I can almost taste the pull of the insane split second when falling forward over a precipice seems like a perfectly satisfying thing to do.

I cannot venture there. I will never return.

So I opt to stare at it from a far enough distance through a sheen of glass, safe inside the dusty halls of the library. Secure on the opulent tiles lining the floor.

Most people here have forgotten to appreciate it's danger and beauty. But I know Frigga stares at it as much as I do.

And a shadow passes over her face that I cannot comprehend.

* * *

"Odin continues to send me new friends. How _thoughtful_," Loki says.

I sit in the cot that Loki has nightmares on every night. I watch the prisoners enter and I frown at their strange wardrobe.

"The books I sent- do they not interest you?"

Me and Loki swivel our eyes towards Frigga. I tense while Loki paces.

"Is that how I am to while away eternity?"

He looks dangerous.

"Reading?" Loki walks in front of me. He has not washed his hair in a while.

"I have done everything in my power to keep you comfortable, Loki." The books in the corner sit perfectly organized, looking exactly as they did when Frigga had them brought down here. I know this because Loki spent two hours shifting the corners and placing them obsessively in order to make them seem untouched.

"Have you?" Loki asks. He leers forward. "Does Odin share your concern? Does Thor?" His father and brother. I never had any of those but somehow, I do not think it is commonplace to call your father by his first name, even here on Asgard.

"It must be so inconvienient them asking about me day and night," he says waspishly sarcastic. I cringe. His voice, like his name, is unexpected- soft, refined and deadly when I expected ragged and hollow to match the resentment in his eyes.

But why would he resent his mother, when only she has seemed to show any concern over him?

"You know full well it was your actions that brought you here." Frigga says sternly.

Rage flames my face and burns wetness in my eyes. She sounds like she is berating a child. Chastising his temper tantrum on Earth when the end result is dead in the air around them.

"_My _actions," Loki says, sweeping his arm mockingly polite. "I was merely giving truth to the lie that I've been fed my entire life. That I was born to be a king."

"A king?" Frigga moves closer and I hug my knees tighter, still reproachful towards her. I do not miss the way Loki deliberately turns away from Frigga's gaze.

"A true king admits his faults. And what of the lives you took on earth?"

_Here I am, _I want to scream. I almost stand and wave my arms but I sit shock still and do not take my eyes off of Loki's back. Turn around and look into my eyes.

What of my life? _What of my life?_

(my blood that mars your ledger)

"A mere handful compared to the number that Odin has taken himself."

So blunt.

_I don't matter._ And his voice and his words make it true.

They keep talking but I am shrinking away. They don't even notice.

I dimly register Frigga's voice but his words turn into sharp, crystalline glass that pierces the scarred tissue around my heart that still holds the feeling of my mother crying, of the souls that Floated Away and left me behind like a child who tripped on her way trying to follow the racing kids far up ahead, of my life that disappeared with a burning blast from a monster under the command of a man who shouted into the ash sky that "_you are all of you beneath me._" And I laid beneath the rubble and knew he was right.

_A mere handful._

A fragile glass tear falls unseen from my eye and lands on the floor with the quietest breaking of glass I have ever heard. Frigga and Loki would hear it, if they would stop their speaking.

I stand up unnoticed. I make for the magical golden wall fully intent on never returning. Never again. Until I hear Frigga say something and-

"**HE'S NOT MY FATHER!**"

My hand strokes the surface of the gold sheen and I freeze. I sense the breaking of another heart behind me, warm and honey-colored.

"Then am I not your mother?"

His face is like a child's.

I close my eyes. "Don't say it," I whisper. "_Don't say it._"

I turn slowly and time slows in the way that only the dead sense. The crystal tear I left behind cracks the floor between mother and son and splits the ground in two. Only I see the fissure; Only I hear the _crack_.

The son's face freezes into something unrecognizable.

"You're not."

I close my eyes again and I hear Frigga laugh breathlessly. Humorlessly. Can she tell how close Loki stands on the edge of the split between them?

"Always so perceptive," Frigga whispers, "about everyone but yourself."

I open my eyes to see Loki shake his head. And I feel as if he sensed the looming split between him and his mother all along but instead of backing away, he hurled himself right off.

Frigga opens her hands out to him all the same. A lifeline. A second chance.

_Hold on_, I want to tell Loki. _Get out of the chasm._

(You can still fix something even if it can't be me.)

But my tears and anger have crystallized into a hard lump in my throat and I can't swallow it down. A horrible, savage part of me that was born when I died wants him to fall. I want him to smell the blood. I want him to see the carnage. So I say nothing. He wouldn't hear me anyway.

And Loki's face looks like he has understood for far too long that second chances have long since passed. Too late now.

He waves a hand through Frigga's transparent form-a magical illusion, a glamour, not _really_ here- and she begins to disappear before our eyes and somehow _I just know_-

This will be the last time we see her.

With searching, shining eyes that say _Do not do this._

* * *

After Frigga leaves, Loki closes his eyes and looks as if he is trying to banish away every memory of his mother. But the feeling of the plummet carved into the floor hangs heavy in the air and reminds him of what has just been lost. Only I can see it. But I know he feels it there.

He collapses on his cot and I see his back rise and fall unsteadily. There is no sound and I cannot see his face. I hesitate- then lean over him.

He's sobbing. He does not move for a very long time.

* * *

To be continued.

A/N: Please review if you can so I can improve my writing!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: POV includes someone other than OC now.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

I walk unseen along a soapy shore, underneath a night sky.

It is raining petals of a fragile pink. I catch one in the palm of my hand and blow it towards the ship that carries Frigga's body.

The dark sky glows dimly with the light of a thousand burning ships. I thought before of sneaking aboard one or more enticingly, aboard Frigga's. I could hold her hand and we could journey on together. We could talk about books and bridges and dysfunctional families. But I hold myself back. To do so would be defiling a shrine.

I keep myself at a distance, a shadow in an ocean of mourners.

Ahead, the remnants of a family watch the ships spontaneously combust after flaming arrows cut the sky. A viking funeral. Everyone watches the ships, some with tears cascading down and others with weary faces of age long warriors, who learned long ago how to lock it all away.

I look back towards the dazzling palace. I wonder if he knows yet.

I lurk behind the broken, grieving family like an uninvited witness in this black parade. Thor stands tall and stiff by Odin. His warrior face is betrayed by the way he clenches his fists, the slight tremor in every breath. I can feel the heaviness of guilt pressing down on him, an invisible hand with an unmovable weight crushing him with the thought _How could you have let this happen?_

I see the only other mortal here too. _Jane_, I remember. She lingers near Thor. Her anxious gaze flickers over to Thor's face periodically. Her armored too-small form looks unfitting here but for once, Asgard looks away from the obvious fact that she does not belong.

Odin is the weariest of all. His one eye is heavy with sorrow on a weathered face with no trace of tears. I almost feel bad for him.

There is an almost automatic space between Thor and Odin, where Frigga would have stood. I stand where Loki would have stood, off to Thor's side and far enough away from Odin.

What kind of a father does not allow his youngest son to say goodbye to his mother?

Petals continue to rain down. It's as if the trees are weeping. The sweet scent blows across my face and I catch the comforting scent of Frigga's hair. They have lined her funeral bed with flowers from her beloved garden.

Ahead of us, Frigga's pyre sails to the edge of the world, where the ocean spills over the edge. I wait with baited breath, expecting Frigga to go tumbling down the abyss but ahead- the fire crystallizes into a million shards of glittering glass and rises up into a plethora to join other twinkling lights in the sky.

Stars, I realize. Stars. The ocean does not spill into nothing after all.

The watching mourners seem to sigh collectively while I cannot move, forgetting to breathe as I watch Frigga transform into a constellation.

Behind me, the heat of light presses against my back and I turn to see the Asgardians raise something up into the sky. Balls of light that I have never seen before. I turn from the black waters and watch what I thought were paper lanterns become stars.

What kind of magic is this, that allows the mourners to take all of their grief, their sorrow, their brokenness, and form with it stars to be traced in constellations so that their dead might live forever, never to be forgotten?

I close my eyes and pretend they are saying goodbye to me too, even though I know nobody mourns me but a distant mother and nobody here even knows that once there was a girl who loved music and books and just wanted to walk to the library that day when it was sunny outside. Nobody here knows I once lived, not even the lost man who took my life more quickly and carelessly than a boot stepping down on an ant.

But I am tired of the festering hate. I might be capable of forgiving but every time I try, I feel frozen. My memory screams at the alien that blasted a scorching ball of heat that killed half of my brain. I can still hear his voice screaming _You are all of you beneath me._

Over and over and over. But I don't want to fall over the edge.

Tears cascade down my face because I feel stuck and Thor is stuck and Odin and Jane and- Loki-

We are all hanging over the edge of black water. Why did it take the death of a honey-colored queen for everyone to realize how tight we must hold on?

_(Frigga_, Odin whispered when he surveyed the leftover bodies of both Dark Elves and Aesir. And I could taste his fear.)

(Frigga, who died with her goodbyes in her throat, choked with blood.)

I mourn her. She wasn't my mom. But she deserves this from me, at least. It's a small price for haunting her family and I will pay it gladly.

I pick up a frosty pink blossom that lies on the cobblestones. It's delicately formed, newly budded. Maybe, when I finally die, maybe I'll be reincarnated as a blossom. Maybe I'll become the constellation that spells out a single word because it's all I am capable of doing now but the only thing I cannot seem to do.

(forgive)

I sigh heavily and that brings on a new wave of grief. My face feels cold as the air touches the salty tracks left behind but I don't move to wipe them.

_I will see you soon_, I whisper. _I will see you soon._

I stand there late into the night, after everyone mills their way back to the palace where there will be a feast to commemorate the fallen. It sounds ridiculous to me to feast after a funeral but then I remember that humans do that too.

I stand on the edge of the shore and let the tears drip over my chin. The blossom remains warm in my hand.

I am not alone. The warrior, the woman, remains too. She has brushed off requests to be accompanied to the palace. _I will be there shortly_, she says again and again. _Go on, I won't be long. _

"Sif," I say. No response- just a small shiver she gives in the crisp air. She stands by my side.

Her face remained one of the most stoic during the funeral. She's a warrior; she allowed for no tears, not one single grimace.

She allows them to fall now, alone- save for a ghost.

She lets out a small cracking sob that makes my eyes tear even more. But she stands tall and formidable, reminiscent of murals of warriors who stood back straight and unafraid even in the face of turmoil and execution.

How must she feel now, her realm in peril, the man she loves in love with a mortal woman, the mother figure she must have loved as her own for thousands of years, impossibly fallen?

And the betrayal of a friend- well, I cannot be sure Sif considers Loki a burden right now to begin with. He betrayed her, after all.

"Goodbye, Mother," Sif whispers to the stars.

"Oh, Sif," I whisper and I wrap my lithe arms around her strong, unwavering form. My transparency is a challenge, but I stay still and wait for Sif to return. Her tears eventually dwindle down and I feel the pain calcifying her into something hard and permanent. She will carry these griefs for the rest of her long existence.

Sif wipes her face and hides underneath stoic warrior, fierce protector of her realm. I smile at her resilience and decide I like her very much. How did I come to care for this family so greatly? So far from home? It's not even mine, and not one person in it knows I even existed.

_But I can make something better_, a voice whispers to me. _Something._

I take the blossom I picked up from the ground and pin it in Sif's dark hair. A black lock falls over the fragile petals and tangles with the dark strands, weaving it in place.

Sif, unaware, sniffs once. She turns and leaves in the direction of the palace. I look up at the stars where Frigga disappeared and see a twinkle there, like the wink of an eye.

* * *

Later, Sif sits in the quiet Dining Hall. Around her, grieving warriors and maidens and townspeople stuff their faces with a dazzling array of decadent meals and exquisite foods. Sif barely manages not to turn her head away in disgust. She has never understood the compulsory need to shovel down food after a loss.

(_What do they think they will accomplish? Fill up the void left behind with roasted pork and mead_? Loki scoffed a lifetime ago and Sif hurriedly swatted at him and glared at his dishonorable comment even though something inside her screamed in agreement.)

She banishes all thought of Loki from her mind. The traitorous bastard is nowhere around here. She ignores the nagging guilt in that truth and the pressing concern to go down to the dungeons and see him, just _see _and make sure he wasn't bashing his head against the walls or something just as masochistic.

How very fitting it would be for the master trickster to pull something as idiotic as taking his own life after the queen just passed, just to spite them all. This thought tastes sour in her mouth.

(Sif grew up with him, as close as a sister. She understands more of him than she led on.)

(_Thor_, he told her once, _will one day notice your beauty. He is a bullheaded oaf who cannot see what is right in front of him. _Then, eyes twinkling and alight with mischief, he stole a kiss on her cheek. _And if not... I can certainly think of a thing or two to change his mind._)

(Sif had blushed furiously then, and aimed a kick at Loki's leg, who dodged it quickly and aimed a kick at her too so she would not notice that he was blushing too.)

_What had happened to them all?_ She wonders in slight shock. _How did we all come to this?_

(and Sif tries not to remember the automatic disbelieving _rage _she felt when the Allfather ordered the guard to deliver the message to the prisoner as if Loki was not his son, as if Loki was not _her _son)

But he isn't. And she should not harbor such treasonous thought against her king.

_("Tell the prisoner the queen- his mother... has fallen.")_

Sif hides her face in her hands. Dishonorable. She is dishonorable.

Her hands knot into her hair and she feels a strange softness there. Dazed, she pulls out a peach blossom from her hair and stares at it with numb surprise. Hesitantly, she strokes a single finger down a smooth petal.

It must have blown into her hair when the wind shifted and the flowers on Frigga's funeral bed caught the wind. It must have blown into her hair without her realizing and gotten tangled in the unruly strands.

The small blossom is beautiful, one of the many flowers Frigga tended to so carefully in her gardens. The petals are open and hazy, glowing in the dim light from the burning fires in the hall. It feels soft and warm on her hand, despite the cold outside and in the Dining Hall, as if someone lovingly planted a kiss there and threaded it in her hair.

She feels an unexpected rush of emotion at the blushing petals. Taking comfort in the idea of a loving hand placing it there.

(_The three of them rushed to the gardens, Thor several paces ahead, loudly stomping to lead the way; Sif ran close at his heels, reprimanding him loudly at the level of noise he was making so early; Loki ran behind them all, silently struggling to keep up but always allowing the duo ahead, always making sure they were certain and safe with every step._

_"My sons," the Queen crooned in mock surprise when the trio reached the gardens. "I had no idea you would grant me the pleasure of your company. It's not as if I couldn't hear your footsteps all the way from your chambers."_

_Frigga smiled down at the trio and gave Sif her own little warm smile, a shared secret between the two of them because they were the ones who had to keep these boys in line. Sif's chest swelled with pride and affection as she looked upon her queen._

_"Mother! Mother! Look here- Father gave me a new sword to practice with- and look!" _

_Thor twirled his wooden sword dangerously in the air, nearly swatting Loki in the nose with it ("Hey!"), and began to run around the length of the gardens, slaying imaginary dragons and monsters, a tumultuous storm all of his own. Sif smiled widely at him while Loki stared at the wooden sword with a dejected look in his eyes. He had not gotten one._

_Frigga lovingly swept a blonde lock from Thor's eyes the second he kept still enough and leaned down to plant a kiss on his forehead. _

_"_Mother_," Thor complained. Frigga chuckled and allowed Thor to run off and spin again._

_"Good morning, Mother," Loki said pleasantly. Frigga gathered him up and squeezed him tight. Loki smiled and Sif shifted from foot to foot, suddenly shy in the presence of the mother of her two best friends. Frigga smiled lovingly at Sif and bent down to embrace her as well. She smelled like the colorful flowers that grew everywhere._

_"Now Loki," Frigga said chastisingly, "what do we do when in the company of a lady of Asgard?" _

_Loki frowned, considering. _

_Thor entered again, swooping his sword over them all. "But Mama- Sif is not a _lady_-"_

_Sif drew up her own wooden play sword and mockingly swiped at Thor with a "hey!" and both began to duel. _

_"Thor," Frigga said sternly. Sif stopped play fighting with Thor at once, suddenly shy again._

_Loki's eyes brightened suddenly as he came up with an answer._

_"You give her flowers," Loki said, bright green eyes twinkling with the look of pure delight he would wear when he figured anything out. _

_"I have raised you right," Frigga laughed. She carried Loki to reach one of the taller trees, positively overflowing with blooming, splendorous peach blossoms. He was at that age where he was old enough to run about the castle with his big brother playing "Kill the Frost Giants!" and yet young enough to be carried by his mother without the slightest glimmer of self-consciousness. _

_Loki grabbed a beautiful small blossom from a tall branch and Frigga set him down again. Loki walked up to Sif and smiled as he held out the small flower. Thor laughed loudly from the end of the garden. _

_"For you," Loki said. Sif blushed but grinned as she took it gratefully. Frigga helped her pin it in her hair._

_"For all ladies and shieldmaidens of Asgard must look as strong and beautiful as they are," Frigga said with a secretive smile so only Sif could hear. _

_She kept the flower in her hair for the remainder of the day, only taking it off when Thor mocked her for looking so much "like a girl." Loki said nothing as Sif flung it out to the ground as she shouted "I am _not_ a girl!" and stomped on it, blushing furiously all the while._

_When she returned that night to the chamber she slept in, inside the palace, she found the small flower again. It rested quietly on her bed, withered and beaten after being trod on but still painted with the same soft pink. _

_Neither she nor Loki ever mentioned the flower again._)

* * *

After a while, Sif slips the flower into her pocket.

Compared to the flower from a thousand years ago when she was just a girl, which has long since withered away and turned to dust, this flower remains perfectly whole.

After days, the petals are unblemished, the scent ever as sweet. As if whoever touched it before had made it so.

_Magic_, her logic says. _Love_, says her heart. And what is the difference, really?

* * *

To be continued.

A/N: I was sliiiightly hesitant to post this chapter because I have never tried writing from Sif's POV before and ehhh it's 2 AM. I do what I want.

Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Hope you're all well. After this chapter, I am going to be spending quite a bit of time on my other fic, "Vanish." I am unsure when I can update this one, but shouldn't take more than a week. Check out "Vanish" if you're into seriously unreliable narrator Loki!

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Thor sways on the spot- he cannot do it. He cannot go any further.

The hall leading to the dungeons underneath the palace are eerily still. Kurse had left more than than half the prisoners loose; their bodies have been taken care of along with the rest of the fallen. The guards have no pressing concern over guarding the remaining handful of prisoners, not when a queen has just been fallen, not when so many of their fellow comrades will never again walk by their sides.

Thor exhales heavily. One guard, a young, inexperienced Aesir, remains to watch over the cells. His stance is rightfully rigid, but his young face betrays a shiver of apprehension as he casts wary glances to the cell closest to the entrance, the sounds of destruction and crashing the only sound piercing the otherwise deadly quiet.

The guard decides to ignore both Thor and Loki- one hovering about the entrance for nearly two hours and the other raging war inside the small cell. Thor is surprised at the cell's ability to contain him: screams and crashes and shatters. Nothing penetrates through the golden sheen that sucks Loki's magic dry.

Thor can breathe a little easier hearing the sounds of Loki's destruction- knowing his little brother still breathes but his heart panging that Loki does not even bother to hide his rage with a glamour, which is unlike him. Either Loki has forgotten to hide or he really just doesn't give a damn anymore.

Thor wants himself to move his feet, to walk the short length of the floor until he is standing in front of the glass and he can look his little brother in the eye and ask him _How have we come to this, Brother?_

(And Loki would spit back, _I am not your brother._)

Thor crushes his fists tighter, as if that could hold on to the memories of before. As if he could grab the reins of time and hurl them back to before, where Frigga still breathed and Thor could have run just _a little bit faster_, gotten to Odin's chambers just _a little bit sooner_- and none of this would be so broken now. Or maybe he could hurl back time to when Loki was hanging off the Bifrost and he could grab his forearm in time. Or he could jump after him. Or before Odin banished him to Midgard. Or back when they were both just little boys when nothing mattered and he could take it all back. He could hug his brother and never let go. He could hurl them all back and take every single little wretched thing he ever did and make it all better.

He could do it all again but this time he would do it all _right_.

Grief overcomes him and he crumples to the floor. He sits with his back on the wall and clutches his face, covers his ears. Sometimes he can hear the sounds of laughter in the halls- long gone laughs of long gone little boys at play. Sometimes he catches a whiff of blossoms- the smell of his mother's hair. Sometimes he feels a quiet presence watching him- only to turn and find nothing there.

Sometimes- he swears these halls are haunted.

A crash followed by a yell knocks Thor back to reality. Probably a chair or a wooden table, Thor thinks. Thrown against the wall.

_("Loki," Thor called. His fist banged repeatedly on Loki's door. It was locked. "Open the door!"_

_Loki gave no answer, not even a halfhearted _go away _that Thor expected. Thor huffed, annoyed, then crouched on the floor to peer under the crack._

_Through the slight sliver, Thor could see Loki's feet. He was standing near the window, unmoving._

_"Brother, this isn't fair. Father needs us down in the Throne Room," Thor said through the crack. "Just open the door." _

_No answer._)

Thor flinches at the scream that follows. Long and ragged, splitting the air with a sound as sharp as a shard of glass. It tears out of Loki's throat and ends with a cracked sob. It could have tore a bloody mess as it came out of his throat.

Thor feels a coolness on his face and he dimly lifts a hand to his rugged cheek. A tear.

When was the last time he had cried?

_("Loki," Thor called again without hope. "Loki."_

_No answer._

_Thor sighed, then shifted his bulky limbs and moved until he was sitting with his back against Loki's door. He hugged his legs awkwardly and waited, swallowing down his impatience. _

_It took a while. After half an hour, a small click of the opening of a lock echoed in the usually empty hallway._)

Thor hastily wipes his face. The guard fidgets uncomfortably with the sound of Loki's anguished scream but now it is truly silent.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Why is it so difficult?

Thor almost gets up, almost marches down the length of the hall to where he knows Loki will be lying on the floor, all fight drained from every limb. The raging fire burned out and extinguished until all that remains is the ashes. But Thor finds he cannot move.

Thor swallows his grief and stores it away, neatly locked away until he can quietly pull it out and drape it over his shoulders like a heavy coat when he is alone. Loki screams at his grief; he declares war on it and lets it tear at his skin until he is bloody and everything is good and ruined and only then does Loki collapse, defeated, and lies hollow in the midst of the mess he has created.

(_Thor jumped up. He hesitated a split second before turning the door knob. _

_Loki stood, staring out of the window. He was at the age between childhood and adolescence, old enough to have lost some of the childish roundness of his face and young enough to not be in the awkward stage Thor was stuck in, frozen between boy and young man. _

_"Why did you not open the door before, Brother?" Thor asked. Loki turned halfway to Thor._

_His face was marked with salty trails of tears. His eyes __desperately _found Thor's.

_"I do not want to go." Loki said._

_"We must, Loki. Father said we must." Thor placed a hand on Loki's thin shoulder. No matter how much older Loki got, he could never catch up to Thor's bigger size. Thor wondered if he ever would._

_"I know you loved Uncle. But now we have to go and say goodbye," Thor said gently. "We must be brave for our people and for our parents. We must be strong."_

_Loki hung his head slightly. _Strong Asgardian princes do not cry,_ Thor could see the thought running through his head. _

_Thor wanted to say _It's okay to cry, Loki. It's alright to be sad. _But that was not what Father had told them, so instead, Thor only grabbed Loki by his thin arm and gently led him to the door. _

_"Don't worry, Loki. I'll be strong enough for the both of us."_)

_Fool_, Thor finds himself berating himself. _You damned, damned fool._

He should have told Loki that everybody cried. That everyone was allowed grief. That Thor did not have to be strong for the both of them because Loki was already strong, that Loki had always possessed a different kind of courage.

One that silently showed itself whenever Loki watched his brother's back in battle.

One that was revealed the way Loki automatically stood, back straight and chin up, and looked like Odin.

One that unveiled whenever Loki would force himself in the middle of a jeering crowd in the Training Rooms and practice with daggers and magic and everything the blade-wielding warriors of Asgard scoffed and jeered at, even when Loki stood victorious against them all.

Thor should have told him. Instead he can only hate himself for looking back and realizing how many chances he had to make it right. How many chances he did not take.

He should have told him.

Instead, that day of the first real loss the brothers had ever faced, Thor dragged Loki out of that room as he hastily wiped his face. Throughout the entire service, Loki fought back tears and continually reached to dry his face.

_("Wipe your face, Loki," the Allfather said quietly. His one eye moved expressionless at Loki's display of emotion but Thor could tell he was disappointed. Even embarrassed. _

_A boy older than Thor in the crowd noticed and pulled on the sleeve of his friend and pointed at Loki. The two boys snickered behind their hands at the weak, sniveling prince. _

_Loki hung his head, ashamed and face burning. _

_The next day, Thor found the two boys out and pummeled them to the ground. Sif helped. They fled home wailing with a bloody nose and black eye. _

_Loki never let Thor see him cry since that day._)

Thor's chest pangs painfully at the memory. So many chances he had, Thor realizes, to make things right. So many chances he let slip by his clumsy fingers and now it was too late.

His mother is dead and Loki-

Thor breathes heavily and looks in the direction of Loki's now too-quiet cell. The thought comes so clearly to him, so easily as breathing, that it takes Thor by surprise.

_That is not my brother. _

He has not seen the Loki he knew since that unspeakable night on the Bifrost- when Loki was hanging on to Gungnir and looked up at Father so beseechingly and found something in his face that made him decide to let go of them all. The next time Thor saw Loki, he was eye to eye with a stranger, with a cutting derisive laughter and venomous words. A stranger who bore no resemblance to the little brother who played in Frigga's gardens, who once laughed so purely, and fought by Thor's side without hesitation, whose fiercely intelligent mind and clever eyes watched Thor's back when he wasn't looking and Thor would be convinced that Asgard had it all wrong on who was the strongest of the brothers.

_How had it all gone so wrong?_

(And Thor cannot help but think that every time Loki throws a cloak of a mocking smile over whatever lies beneath, that Thor was the one who taught him the need to do it first.)

* * *

Every. Single. Damn-

Someone yells and it sounds instead like a scream.

(what now Silvertongue what now what-)

He grabs the chair and flings it against the wall. It crashes with a satisfying crack and shatters.

Loki breathes heavily. He should fling his head against the wall next and shatter that too- that way he would never again have to hear never again have to _think_-

His hands grasp his dark hair and pulls. His hands claw marks down his clothes until those are ripped and then his skin is next- long red slashes down his neck, his arms, his chest- trying and failing to carve out his beating heart with only his fingernails.

The pain doesn't work. He still breathes and the marks are not a big enough price to pay for sending his mother to her death.

(_I would take the stairs to the left._)

No he did not really say that- no he did not really say it-

(Such a remarkable liar, Liesmith)

(are you sure you didn't kill her too?)

"_Shut_," Loki hisses, "_up_."

The constant presence here, the forever _nagging _feeling that someone is watching- someone is witness to the monster that lurks inside him-

(they are a part of you and they will-)

Loki spins around the cell- eyes crazed and blazing- searching, desperate, for the presence to reveal itself and stop sinking its tiny, sharp claws into his neck and Loki could finally spread his arms and say _Now you see me-now go. _

(never.)

(go.)

(away.)

He spins to his cot. Nothing. To every corner littered with the pages of torn books. Nothing.

He screams again. The cot flies to the opposite wall and crashes loudly. The golden sheen that sucks his siedr greedily hums and Loki feels again the sharp headache- the consequence of allowing his magic to flow away. But he doesn't care. The pain reminds him that he deserves it. He deserves every mark on his body- he deserves every. Fucking-

(Frigga loved you-)

"Go- AWAY!" It tears from his throat and the pages fly everywhere, stirred from his exploding magic. They ripple in the air and disturb every corner but Loki remains- seemingly- the only soul in this cell.

(and you threw it back in her face.)

Then why the voices?

The pages flutter down and still.

(your fault. I heard.)

"Where are you?" Loki whispers. He is deranged. He is insane. He knows that now. He would except it gladly if only he could see who haunts and he could finally give up- collapse on the floor and give in to the monster and hopefully it would devour him but he would be too far gone to care. "_Where are you?_"

(your fault.)

Maybe it's Frigga- maybe Frigga lurks behind him and watches him once more. Maybe- Maybe-

(Frigga is the only reason you're alive and you will never see her again.)

"I'm sorry," he whispers to the air. Maybe he imagines it- but the air itself seems to ripple, shimmer with something that cannot be seen. Only felt.

If she was the only reason he lives, shouldn't it also be true that he should be dead by now?

(What did the end result matter when the reason is gone?)

Then he throws his head back and laughs. Denial at its best. No, he is imagining Frigga. She would not want to come back- not even to haunt her pretend-son. He is imagining ghosts and he laughs again because it is only when he is at his most ragged that he realizes how truly _insane _he must be.

No. He is not so lucky that she would return. He shunned her. Ordered her away with his poison words and barbed tongue. Sent her to never return with tears in her eyes because she was a _liar_, she _lied _to _him _all these years and what else did she deserve, _really_-

He disgusts himself. He hates himself. Loathes himself. And it isn't enough.

* * *

Loki looks right at me when the storm passes. I am left to survey the debris.

He lets out on final scream- ragged and bloodcurdling- and once again, I spy the homicidal maniac who ravaged a city. Every Dark Elf should run in fear for their lives.

(I do not feel sympathy I don't I DON'T-)

My heart will not stop hammering in my chest.

_He heard me- did he really hear me? Or has he just cracked?_

I tell myself it is the latter but that does not soothe my frayed nerves or my shaking hands. I have forgotten what it felt like for someone to hear my voice and know I existed.

_But how?_

They have never heard me before. _Why now?_

Loki sits on the ground, collapsed, his anguish finally spent. I survey the damage left behind- shattered glass, books ripped to shreds, his skin bloody and clawed. I can only be glad I wasn't in the pathway of this particular storm to result in a casualty this time around.

_Why now?_

* * *

To be continued.

A/N: Things will finally start to speed up plot wise next time around! I wanted to join this chapter with the previous one to get everyone's reaction's to Frigga's death all together but it was 3 AM and my dad walked in my room and found me typing away. EEK. Nothing more awkward than explaining that. He thought I was watching porn.

Well. Stay tuned for the next chapter, in which hopefully things become much more fast paced concerning a certain face-to-face between two characters that has yet to happen...

Please review! Please please!


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